Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Georges Charpak, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1426 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
For nearly sixty years the menace of nuclear war has hung over humanity, while at the same time the promise of nuclear energy has enticed us. In Megawatts and Megatons, two of the world’s most eminent physicists—French Nobel Prize laureate Georges Charpak and American Enrico Fermi Award–winner Richard L. Garwin—assess with consummate authority the benefits of nuclear energy and the dangers of nuclear weaponry.

Garwin and Charpak begin by elucidating the discoveries that have allowed us to manipulate nuclear energy with increasing ease. They clearly and concisely explain complex principles of fission and fusion pertaining to nuclear weaponry and the generation of nuclear electric power. They also make a strong and eloquent argument in favor of arms control. More than ten thousand nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union, together with a similar number in the United States, have the capacity to destroy the world many times over. The “nuclear club” of nations is growing, with India and Pakistan its latest members and Iran, Iraq, and North Korea striving for admission. Even the possibility of a single weapon in the hands of a terrorist group—or a lone
terrorist—poses a threat that we cannot ignore.

Meanwhile, nuclear power already provides one-sixth of all electrical energy in the world—France, for instance, derives 80% of its electricity from reactors— but nuclear power has met with great resistance in the United States, where the specter of the Three Mile Island breakdown still looms in the public’s consciousness. Garwin and Charpak take a temperate, rational tone in evaluating the benefits of nuclear energy. They show how it can provide an assured, economically feasible, and environmentally responsible supply of energy in a way that avoids the hazards of weapons proliferation.

Cogently written, passionately and carefully ar-gued—and featuring explanatory technical drawings as well as illustrations by the world-famous French cartoonist Sempé—Megawatts and Megatons is a thoughtful and important primer on two of the central issues of our time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Good look at the international scene
This book covers the science, history, current practice and issues of nuclear power and nuclear weaponry.The first several chapters go over the science of nuclear fission and fusion, and the technology used to harness it.This is accompanied by a short history of the development of nuclear weapons and power.The rest of the book then looks at the state of the nuclear industry around the world, both from a commercial, political, and technological standpoint, and how this compares with other energy systems such as the oil industry, coal industry, etc...The book covers the different types of reactors in existence and under design.The authors also give a good history of nuclear accidents, both in the reactors, and accidental release of radioactive waste.The book ends with chapters on how nuclear power has affected international relations, and what options exist in this area for the future.Overall a good book to read; highly informative and comprehensive.One minus that I found is that the authors are found of citing facts and figures and reproducing tables and graphs, without always including the corresponding references in the text.Instead, all the references are listed at the end of the book.

Different subtitles, same book?
You might think Megawatts and Megatons subtitled "The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons" (paperback) would have different contents than the one subtitled "A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age" (hardback), like I did; however, with the exception of a new couple-page "Note to the Paperback Edition," I saw no differences.I'd suggest not falling for Amazon's Buy Both on these two, because you'll probably be disappointed to find out you got two editions of the same book.

Comprehensive, Sci, American level treatment of nuke power
Although its authors fail to recognize that worldwide oil+natural gas extraction will certainly peak before 2015, this book is very timely. Garwin & Charpak write (p. 246) "We believe that one of the highest duties of society as a whole is to assess and to choose its destiny. In this book our goal is less to prescribe than to inform our readers of the options as we see them ... In considering nuclear energy we do not in any way intend to denigrate other approaches to providing for the needs of society -- including renewable energy, improved efficiency to reduce energy needs, and the like. Nevertheless, all these options will have direct and indirect effects on the environment." Nuclear power for electricity generation is one of their threads, the other is weapons and arms control which Garwin has worked on for many years mostly to point out the futility of defense against weapons not delivered by missiles and against missiles after decoys are deployed.

The book compares the success of nuclear power-plants in France (where reactors produce 80% of the electricity) with the perceived failures in execution in the US. The authors consider both direct (once through) disposal and reprocessed fuel cycles, outlining costs in energy and radioactivity release of both, and the mixed French experience with reprocessing and breeders. They note that advanced reprocessing has the potential to reduce waste volume and long-term radioactivity, at the expense of doubling release today (p. 198). They advocate research into uranium separation from sea-water, noting that early experiments are very promising that this can meet growing power needs for hundreds of years. Of course, what we really need are about 40 years of growth to bridge the world to a mix of fully sustainable electricity sources and to take up the growing slack from declining oil+natural gas. The authors first consider the bridging contribution of coal, arguing (p. 232) that CO2 sequestration is certainly feasible at the cost of reducing power-plant net energy output by 30-50%. Coupled with oil+gas decline, sequestration would reduce anthropogenic CO2 generation to levels well below the lowest 2100 projection of the IPCC (perhaps explaining the seemingly comatose response of Cheney/Bush to the Kyoto process). They discuss reactor concepts like the inaccurately named "energy amplifier" sub-critical, accelerator assisted thorium concept of Rubbia, but less discussion of nearer term developments such as the pebble bed modular reactors that seemed until 4/02 to be on track in South Africa. Both approaches are said to attain passive safety. If such designs are not debugged urgently, we will have to depend on expanded use of derivatives from technically "ancient" light-water reactors derived from submarine power-plants.

The authors also discuss opportunities for terrorists to divert enriched fuel from reprocessing and waste disposal, and note how attractive disposal sites will be for future warriors after all but the plutonium has decayed! They do not discuss the vulnerabilities of existing reactors, but do advocate burying the next generation of power-plants. A chapter on safety also advocates distributing potassium iodide tablets to saturate thyroids of those near power-plants undergoing "an incident"; failure to do this in a timely fashion at Chernobyl produced the criminally high incidence of childhood leukemia. (Until rationality overcomes PR, you can buy suitable KI on the Web. A single dose is useless!) They compare nuclear industry hazards to other industries, tabulating (p. 202) that the relative probability of dying from even a Chernobyl accident is minute compared to cardiovascular disease or "medical errors in hospitals". They discuss the effects of radiation at Chernobyl in detail. There are only a few typesetting errors, and a number of not funny cartoons; the illustrations are clear and useful. It is likely that for the next few decades, our choice in the US will be either a nuclear reactor within 50 miles or electricity rationing through extremely high prices. I plan to use this book in my upcoming college-freshman level energy course for non-science majors ..., and recommend it as a solid introduction to a complex but very real conundrum for our technically challenged society.

Accurate excerpt!?
If the second sentence of Chapter One is an accurate excerpt from this book, it is seriously flawed:

Excerpt from Megawatts and Megatons : A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age

Chapter 1

ATOMS, ELECTRONS, AND NUCLEI

All matter is an assembly of atoms. A liter of water, for example, contains about 1026 atoms of hydrogen and oxygen.

Please, tell me it isn't so. If it were, we'd be able to see those atoms, wouldn't we? ... Read more

Book Description
Much instrumentation has been developed for imaging the trajectories of elementary particles produced in high energy collisions. Since 1968, gaseous detectors, beginning with multiwire chambers and drift chambers, have been used for the visualisation of particle trajectories and the imaging of X-rays, neutrons, hard gamma rays, beta rays and ultraviolet photons. This book commemorates the groundbreaking research leading to the evolution of such detectors carried out at CERN by Georges Charpak, Nobel Prizewinner for Physics in 1992. Besides collecting his key papers, the book also includes original linking commentary which sets his work in the context of other worldwide research. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Cross-spectrum discussion of nuclear policy
In Megawatts and Megatons, Garwin and Charpak collaborated on an excellent description of nuclear power and weapons, starting with discussions of nuclear physics and energy, and ending with a narrative of post WWII international relations, centered upon arms control and prevention of use of nuclear weapons.

The authors have strong opinions on the proper use of nuclear energy and the means to reduce dependence on nuclear weapons, as one would imagine from two scientific practitioners.As such, they have presented a well-developed argument that aims to convince the reader that the U.S. should modify its energy and nuclear weapons policies to reduce the threats of global warming and nuclear contamination as well as nuclear conflict and terrorism.

Unfortunately for the layman, the technical nature of the first portion of the book may make difficult reading for the reader without a background in science or engineering, although the authors do make an effort to describe the concepts so that the non-expert may understand.

I recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the technical description of nuclear power and weapons, nuclear policy, and recommendations new policy directions.

Drop the politics and increase the economic sensibilities...
While I appreciate the discussion on nuclear arms I don't think it needed to be at the length the authors took it.

And while I really enjoyed the discussion on nuclear power I was disspointed that the authors took great care to detail and expound ideas (Rubia's for example) at the expense of othereconomical and safe technologies (Gen III+ and IV LWR for example).

There was no reason not to expand on the the available, decades-proven, and economical designs of today. Basically what I'm thinking is they could've done better to discuss evolutionary designs as opposed to completely new (relatively speaking) concepts. Either way it's a great book, -Ali

Different subtitles, same book?
You might think Megawatts and Megatons subtitled "The Future of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons" (paperback) would have different contents than the one subtitled "A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age" (hardback), like I did; however, with the exception of a new couple-page "Note to the Paperback Edition," I saw no differences.I'd suggest not falling for Amazon's Buy Both on these two, because you'll probably be disappointed to find out you got two editions of the same book.

Hard to Recommend
This is a strange book. Actually, it's two books in one, with a dopey chapter for children thrown in for good measure. The first half is about nuclear power, both in energy production and weapons. The second half is an editorial for nuclear disarmament. The authors make no attempt to divorce their politics from the discussion. Even the first, more substantive half of the book is liberally laced with disarmament talking points.

Notwithstanding their views on disarmament, the authors support nuclear power and do a pretty good job explaining the scientific, financial and engineering aspects of the Peaceful Atom. If the portions on nuclear power were available separately as a pamphlet I would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. On balance, however, those few chapters don't justify wading through the entire book. ... Read more

Book Description

Can you walk over red-hot charcoal without burning your feet? Appear to stop the beating of your heart? Bend spoons using the power of your mind? In Debunked! Nobel Prize winner Georges Charpak and physics professor Henri Broch team up to show you the tricks of the trade and sleight of hand that keep astrologers, TV psychics, and spoon benders in business.

Using only the simplest of science, the authors explore the effectiveness of horoscopes -- the blander the better -- and why, with a television audience in the millions, any strange, unlikely prediction is almost certain to come true. If such insider information does not impress your colleagues, why not pierce your tongue with a skewer or demonstrate your eerie powers by using telepathy and the telephone to get a distant friend to intuit the number and suit of a card picked at random. Charpak and Broch show you how.

Not merely an expose of magic tricks, this book demonstrates how pseudoscientists use science, statistics, and psychology to bamboozle an audience -- sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit. During the most scientifically advanced period in human history, belief in the paranormal and the supernatural is alarmingly common. Entertaining and enlightening, Debunked! is the antidote, vigorously asserting the virtues of doubt, skepticism, curiosity, and scientific knowledge. This lucid translation makes the arguments clear, understandable, and a pleasure to read.

Customer Reviews (6)

What about the human factor
Georges Charpak, the 1992 Nobel Prize winner in physics, and Henri Broch, winner of the Distinguished Skeptic Award from The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), have together written a book about the art of being a skeptic.

It's not the first book in the genre, but it's a quite pleasant read, even though it's not by far the best book ever written about the specific topic. Objectively and thoroughly (and once in a while quite funny), the authors discuss different topics and phenomena that for the Believers are truly paranormal, but the skeptic are nothing but lies, illusions, fakes, or simply very normal matters that through a messed up media are given the impression to be more remarkably than they really are.

They willingly admit that they, despite their great knowledge and long experience, do not have all the answers. But, they are indeed hardcore skeptics; and rationally explain things such as astrology, telepathy, spoon bending, levitation, et cetera.

Which is all nice and dandy, but, something is still wrong with the book. Once in a while it's just plain boring with endless mathematical formulas and calculations, and certain topics are thoroughly described while others are more or less only mentioned briefly. The largest problem is, however, how the authors completely forget one factor: namely the human.

Many people relying on, for instance, astrology, live perfectly happy lives doing so. But the authors appear to be completely ignorant to that. Instead, they mercilessly ridicule every single one who believe in matters that established science cannot or will not rationally explain, and at the end of the book they start talking about terrible nightmare scenarios which are certain to happen if more and more people start believing in irrational and unscientific ideas. The end of the world is near (the authors seem to think), unless mankind starts acting like devoted skeptics, and the only religion worth believing is Science.

This more or less fanatical propaganda for critical thinking and the excellence of science destroys what could instead have been a great book.

What about the human factor
Georges Charpak, the 1992 Nobel Prize winner in physics, and Henri Broch, winner of the Distinguished Skeptic Award from The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), have together written a book about the art of being a skeptic.

It's not the first book in the genre, but it's a quite pleasant read, even though it's not by far the best book ever written about the specific topic. Objectively and thoroughly (and once in a while quite funny), the authors discuss different topics and phenomena that for the Believers are truly paranormal, but the skeptic are nothing but lies, illusions, fakes, or simply very normal matters that through a messed up media are given the impression to be more remarkably than they really are.

They willingly admit that they, despite their great knowledge and long experience, do not have all the answers. But, they are indeed hardcore skeptics; and rationally explain things such as astrology, telepathy, spoon bending, levitation, et cetera.

Which is all nice and dandy, but, something is still wrong with the book. Once in a while it's just plain boring with endless mathematical formulas and calculations, and certain topics are thoroughly described while others are more or less only mentioned briefly. The largest problem is, however, how the authors completely forget one factor: namely the human.

Many people relying on, for instance, astrology, live perfectly happy lives doing so. But the authors appear to be completely ignorant to that. Instead, they mercilessly ridicule every single one who believe in matters that established science cannot or will not rationally explain, and at the end of the book they start talking about terrible nightmare scenarios which are certain to happen if more and more people start believing in irrational and unscientific ideas. The end of the world is near (the authors seem to think), unless mankind starts acting like devoted skeptics, and the only religion worth believing is Science.

This more or less fanatical propaganda for critical thinking and the excellence of science destroys what could instead have been a great book.

explains mechanics, not people
Nobel prizewinners can be excused for being self-satisfied, but that doesn't help the style or substance of this book.

Some parts are undeniably thought-provoking.On astrology, let's start with the fact that the earth makes one complete circuit of the sun in one year: right?Wrong.Oh.At that point I had to go back a few pages and start again.We choose the length of the year so that seasons don't drift round the calendar.Useful reference points are the equinoxes, when the earth's axis is perpendicular to the plane in which it rotates the sun.But that axis also swivels very slowly, so this year's equinox doesn't occur at exactly the same point on the orbit as did last year's.That means that the constellations _do_ gradually drift through the calendar.So their pattern at the birth of someone in, say, August in classical times is different to that of someone born in August this year.The authors do admit, however, that a minority of astrologers take this into account.And the feasible idea that season of birth could be associated with character traits is not addressed.

Other sections explain, in a tiresomely arch style, how to play pseudo-paranormal tricks on your friends.And others show, at some length, that apparently extraordinary events - - eg light bulbs blowing at the command of a TV psychic - - are really to be expected when you take into account the number of people involved.One of the better chapters is a case study of a French stone sarcophagus which seems to spontaneously fill with water.The most interesting aspect is perhaps not the explanation itself, but subsequent TV programs' persistent denial that one has been found.

The text would've benefited from better editing and translation.For example, when describing Conan Doyle's interest in the paranormal, it's a waste of time including the well-worn joke about Sherlock Holmes camping.And sentences like 'It was so good!' don't work in English.

The dominant mode of argument is the rhetorical question, eg 'How can such stupid things influence anyone of even average education?', after a quote from L Ron Hubbard.The fact is that they _do_influence such people, but the authors lack either the imagination or inclination to try to find out why.

'Multinationals' are blamed for promoting the occult as a new kind of mass opiate, but none are named: the only specific example in this section is public TV.The authors don't seem to have noticed that business spends billions on orthodox scientific R&D, while 'New Age' ideas are spread by enthusiastic amateurs operating by grass roots networks, fly posting, and cramped stores in low rent neighbourhoods.If the authors are really as concerned as they profess about democracy, they should try to answer their own questions as to why so many curious people don't find answers in science.

Debunked!
It's a good account of scientific explanation of those physical properties of matter that look paranormal to layman. Unexpected behaviors from a human, animal or even metal creates awe and false beliefs in paranormal activities. Nature is full of such phenomenon and I believe 99% of it is still hidden. I liked reading this book from scientific and a common man's point of view. At some points it may seem a little bit random but that is because it's hard to organize scientific explanation of paranormal for average layman. It's concise and yet adequately comprehensive fullfiling its purpose.

Chaotic!
For perhaps 2 decades, at the University of Nice, Prof. Broch has taught a course analyzing the claims of pseudoscience.He has also published a number of books on the topic; this is the only one ever to be translated into English.It may be the last.I assume this particular specimen was chosen because the co-author is Nobel prizewinning physicist Georges Charpak, but it was difficult for me to detect Charpak's contributions.

Thebad news is that the book looks as if it were assembled by Prof. Broch sitting down and pulling material pretty much at random from the presentations in his courses.The text is never lucid and sometimes lapses into outright incoherence; I found portions to be completely unreadable.

I would recommend skipping the prologue altogether.Chapter 1 begins with Astrology and the Forer Effect; most of the discussion makes sense but illustrations and tables often don't. I would, for example, like to see someone make any sense of the table on page 12, particularly in view of the instructions to select "one box at random from each of the four columns numbered 2 to 4."Of course the columns are not numbered, but if you reread the instructions you'll see that could hardly matter!The whole book is like this.The chapter suddenly veers from astrology to a "telephone psychic" mindreading trick.Then suddenly there are very brief discussions of antiquated levitation illusions, sitting on broken glass shards and beds of nails, a 500-year-old version of "skewer through tongue," firewalking, and one of Broch's classroom demonstrations with nitinol wire.Throughout, when books are mentioned, the reference is almost always to a French-language edition, even when the book was first published in English; can you say, "no editing?"

Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of various "paradoxes" of probability, and it is probably the best-written and most lucid portion of the book.The chapter then veers off into "the man in the moon" illusion, the human tendency to see patterns in randomness.

Chapter 3 touches on dowsing, and then comes the now-expected swerve into a disconnected topic, in this case the "mysterious" presence of water in a sarcophagus at Arles-sur-Tech in the Pyrenees.In the aftermath of the fairly non-coherent discussion, about all I came away with was that French TV "documentary" producers and writers are just as uninterested in fact as British and U.S. TV "documentary" producers and writers. Then there's another swerve into the pseudoscience of obtaining water in large quantities by "condensation" from the air.Then there is yet another swerve, into public fears of radioactivity.I suspect this is the only portion of the text Charpak had much input into, but it does not read any more lucidly than the rest of the book.The basic point of the discussion, to the extent I could make any sense of it, is that activists and the public irrationally worry about "artifical" and highly localized sources of radiation while seemingly being totally ignorant of natural sources spread over the entire globe which provide doses 100 or 1,000 times those of the "artifical" sources.

Chapter 4 seems to deal with the penetration of occult beliefs into French academia.But maybe not.As in the other chapters, the focus, if any, is fuzzy at best. Chapter 5 turns on the apparently subtle fact that being tolerant of others' beliefs is good, but being tolerant of obvious factual errors is bad. The book ends with a brief appendix on calculating probabilities.

I am sure that Prof. Broch teaches an excellent course and indeed I wish I could sit in on it. But this particular book is going to find few if any readers in the English-speaking world. ... Read more